by Patricia Fry
So it was that each Saturday, Rags watched me transfer everything from the stash cupboard into our wagon and off we’d go. I chuckled inside, thinking we must look like Big Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf. By then I’d learned that perhaps Rags was a wolf or maybe a larger-than-life lion in kitty-cat fur.
As exasperating as he could be, I loved him more each day. I mean, who wouldn’t love a snuggle-bug cat that seems to adore you more than even his food? Oh yes, he definitely displayed a beautiful side to his personality. He was funny—in fact, silly—at times. He kept me entertained. What a sense of humor. He’s always been a patient companion even when I want to curl up with a good book or watch a chick-flick. He can be very good company. Now if only I could have curbed some of his worst habits.
Truth be told, I think I liked the challenge of being Rags’s human. There was something exciting about his behavior. At that time in my life I guess I needed to step outside my comfort zone and take a few risks. I craved something to remind me that I was alive—to crank up the dull existence I’d fallen into. Note to self: be careful what you wish for.
****
Later that year my-on, again-off-again boyfriend, Travis, and I went out of town to visit friends. My sister, Bri, who generally stayed at my place on those rare occasions when I traveled, was back at school and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving Rags with anyone else. It was too much to ask of any friend or my mom, so I decided to take him with us. After all, Rags was a good traveler. He enjoyed riding in the car and he was adaptable when it came to exploring new places and meeting people.
In those early days with Rags, I often took him for car rides to visit Gwen and her two rescue cats or my friend, Sarah. He’d go with me to the cat shelter sometimes. and I loved taking him to the pet store—you know, the one where they encourage you to bring your pet when you shop for his food and other things. Rarely did I see another cat in the store, except those in pens waiting to be adopted. So he always got a lot of attention.
Often, Rags and I walked to my mother’s house, which was about a mile and a half from me. Mom would sometimes drive us home or Rags and I would take the bus. But most of the time we’d walk home, although I should say that I walked home. I eventually bought a used jogging stroller for Rags, because halfway there or back he’d almost always need to be carried.
He was comfortable riding in almost anything with wheels. As I said, even though he was a high-energy cat, he was relatively adaptable and easygoing. I wish I could say the same for Travis. He did not like cats and Rags didn’t do anything to help change that. In fact, Rags seemed to take delight in fostering Travis’s animosity toward all of feline-kind.
Rags always managed to lie on Travis’s jacket, no matter where he left it. We caught him licking from Travis’s ice cream bowl a couple of times. And he once grabbed a whole shrimp off Travis’s plate. I took it away from Rags before he could eat it, although Travis was all for letting the cat have it. A generous gesture, you say? Not really. It was because I explained to Travis that too much of the garlic sauce could kill a cat.
No, Travis did not like Rags. He never even tried to make friends with him. Travis wasn’t what you’d call sensitive or intuitive. So when he predicted that Rags would somehow spoil our trip, I didn’t take him seriously.
As I packed Rags’s things that Friday after work, I told him we were going on an adventure and that I expected him to be on his best behavior in the car, as well as when we got to Kristen’s and Natasha’s place in Ventura. I explained to the cat that we would be guests and that we must respect our hostesses’ things and their rules. I also told him that this was a vacation for me and I expected him to stay out of trouble. I practically begged him, “No kitty-cat drama, pleeease.” Unfortunately Travis was right—I mean about Rags spoiling our trip. It turned out to be a near disaster and a definite learning experience for me.
The home where we stayed had lever door handles and it didn’t take Rags long to learn how to open the doors. He’s a good-sized cat and could easily jump up and grab the levers. He figured out that when he pulled down on the lever, a whole new world opened up to him. No room was safe from Rags. And with six of us in and out of the house that weekend, I was on high alert, making sure the outer doors remained locked. After a full day of stressing about Rags and rescuing him when he managed to get a door open, I finally relaxed. As far as I knew, my diligence in thwarting his escape attempts had succeeded. Rags began to settle down, which meant I could too. I felt safe in joining the others for an outdoor concert that night and leaving Rags safely inside the home behind locked doors.
So you can imagine my surprise when we returned to the house later that night to find the front door standing wide open and Rags sitting outside on the porch. My friends began to laugh, but I did not see the humor in the situation. In fact, I thought I’d be sick. I felt an awful knot in the pit of my stomach. The first thing I wanted to know was, “How did this happen?”
“Yeah,” Kirsten’s boyfriend, James, said, laughing, “did someone give him a key?”
“Maybe he picks locks with those cat claws of his,” Kristen suggested.
Natasha quickly explained to me that they don’t usually lock their doors and that we were all in such a rush to leave she forgot about Rags’s special needs.
Special needs, indeed. That was certainly one way to describe him. So that night, as stunned as I was to see him outside, I was awfully glad he didn’t run off. I quickly scooped him up and started to carry him inside when I heard Travis ask, “What’s this?”
Natasha responded, “Looks like someone’s wallet.”
When I glanced at the tri-fold wallet, my heart sank. “Oh no. Rags what have you done?” I pleaded with the others, “Please tell me it belongs to one of you.”
When it was confirmed that it didn’t belong to anyone present, Natasha suggested, “Open it, Travis. Let’s see whose name’s in there.”
James joked, “Is there any money in it?”
“The cat probably took that,” Natasha’s date, Kent, said, laughing.
“Is that a policeman’s badge?” Natasha asked, looking over Travis’s shoulder.
Kristen said between chortles, “Oh my God, did he eat a cop?”
By then I needed to sit down. I carried Rags into the living room and eased onto the sofa. When he started to squirm in my arms, I shouted, “Close the door, will you? Come on, I can’t hold onto him all night.”
That’s when Kristen took over. “Okay, everyone,” she instructed, “come in so we can close the door.” She joined me on the sofa, put her arms around me, and said, “It’s okay, Savannah. You can let him go now. Are you all right?”
Of course, when you’re feeling emotional and someone expresses sympathy, you’re going to lose it, and I did. A river of tears rushed through the floodgates I’d so diligently tried to hold closed. I felt awful. I was exhausted from having monitored Rags all day and now I’d come home to find him outside in a strange town with a policeman’s badge, of all things. When I began to control myself and dry my eyes, Kristen said, “Awww, if that isn’t cute. He’s consoling you, Savannah.”
I looked down and saw Rags lying next to me on the sofa with one paw on my knee. I peered into his eyes and he let out the softest little mew. Irresistible. That’s what he is. And I’m a sucker for him. Although I don’t know how I would have felt about him if I’d been arrested that night.
Taking charge, Natasha suggested, “We need to find the cop this belongs to.” She laughed. “I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait to hear how the cat got his paws on this badge.”
I felt nauseated and quickly took a couple of deep breaths.
“Where do we start?” Kristen asked.
“Well,” Natasha said, taking the wallet from Travis, opening it, and studying the ID, “I guess we call the police station.” As she picked up her phone, James began to chuckle. “What’s funny?” she asked.
He explained, “Well, if I was that
cop, I don’t think I’d want to admit to my superiors that a cat stole my badge.”
“That’s right,” Kent agreed. “My uncle’s a cop and I think that would be pretty embarrassing. Hey, how about if I call him? He might know this guy.”
“Call who?” I asked, my voice a little weak. I cleared my throat and spoke up. “Your uncle?”
“Yeah,” Kent said.
“I don’t know; it’s pretty late, isn’t it?” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” Travis said, “twelve fifteen.”
“Oh, just call the station, Natasha,” James said. “The guy probably needs to be reprimanded. Maybe he did something stupid.”
Natasha gazed at Rags. “Yeah, like try to arrest him.”
I could only hope that Rags hadn’t done anything that would get me into trouble. I cringed as Natasha made the call to the local police station and felt like going into hiding several minutes later when I heard a knock at the door.
I noticed right away that the officers weren’t in very good humor. They were all business and seemed as if they were not eager to deal with a group of twenty- and thirty-something people, most of whom appeared to be in a party mood.
Apparently the dispatcher hadn’t said anything to the officers about a cat being involved, or Natasha hadn’t had the nerve to tell that part of the story when she called.
“Hello, I’m Lieutenant Ogilvie,” the first officer said. “This is Officer Emerson.” He looked around at us. “Um…someone here has my ID?”
James picked up the wallet from the coffee table and handed it to the lieutenant, who quickly examined it, then pocketed it. He glanced around at us again and cleared his throat. “How…I mean which one of you…um…why…?”
“Oh, it wasn’t us,” James said, taking a step back. “It was the cat.”
Just then, Rags sauntered into the room from the kitchen and ran his tongue around his muzzle. When I saw him head toward the open door, I quickly grabbed him and asked, “Can you please come inside? I don’t want the cat to get out.” However, when I realized the situation, I became a little nervous. With the officers inside, they could be less likely to leave quickly and more likely to ask questions. I didn’t mind the questions; it was the answers that scared me. Who would believe what we had to tell them? I wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. On the other hand, what had I seen? The cat sitting next to the officer’s wallet. That’s all.
So once the officers were inside and the door was closed, I let Rags go and what did he do? He strolled directly to the policemen. Officer Emerson reached down and petted him, seemingly getting a kick out of it when Rags head-butted his hand. The lieutenant said, “This cat? Are you saying this cat found my wallet? Where, do you know?” He looked around at the others and asked, “Whose cat is it?”
I raised my hand timidly and said quietly, “Mine.” When the officers seemed to be waiting for more, I explained, “I brought him with me from LA for the weekend.”
“You travel with a cat?” he asked.
“Well, it’s the first time I’ve taken him this far,” I told him. “But yes, he likes to ride in the car.”
Lieutenant Ogilvie’s eyes pierced mine. “So what makes you think he took my wallet? I have to tell you, I’m pretty sure where I dropped it and it wasn’t inside this house. So if you found it inside here someplace, you can’t blame the cat for that.” He looked suspiciously at me, then at each of my friends.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s what happened. We went out to a concert and when we got home, we found Rags…”
“That’s the cat?” Officer Emerson asked.
I nodded. “Yes, he was sitting on the porch out there with the door open behind him and the wallet was lying next to him.”
“And that’s your defense?” Lieutenant Ogilvie stared at me for a moment, then glanced at the others. His tone rather snarky, he asked, “You’re blaming a cat? That’s lame, don’t you think so? Okay, which one of you took it? It had to be someone who was in the vicinity of Main and Ann around ten forty-five this evening.”
“No,” James said, “we all went to the concert together and came home together. We didn’t even go near that intersection.”
“Well, then maybe a neighbor or another friend did it,” he insisted.
“Wait,” Officer Emerson said, “did you leave the front door open? You said the door was open when you got home.”
I told the officer, “No, it was closed. I guess someone forgot to lock it.”
“Yeah?” he questioned, a confused look on his face.
Reluctantly, I explained, “Well, as you can see, the doors in this house have those lever type handles and Rags—that’s the cat—he can open them. So I’m guessing that he opened the door and went out.” I asked the lieutenant, “How far away is the place where you think you lost the wallet?”
“Yeah,” Travis said, “how did you lose it, anyway? Can’t you get in trouble for that?”
The lieutenant scowled at Travis, then explained, “This evening around ten thirty, there was an accident over on Ann. That’s about, I’d say, a block and a half from here. I had a scuffle with one of the drivers and it was after that when I noticed my ID was missing. I guess it somehow slipped out of my pocket during the altercation.” He looked at Rags and told me, “But why would a cat pick it up?” He shook his head. “That’s just hard to believe.” He glanced around the room again. “And if I find out that one of you took it and tried to blame it on a defenseless cat, I’ll…”
“That cat’s not defenseless,” Travis blurted. “He has claws and he’s a klepto.”
When the officer looked at me, I had to agree. “He’s right. The cat steals things. If you’ll take a close look at your wallet, I’m pretty sure you’ll see his little teeth marks in the leather. I guess it’s possible that someone else picked it up and tossed it onto the porch next to the cat, but knowing his prior record since I adopted him, I’d say that’s your thief, right there.”
Everyone looked at Rags and laughed because he was lying sprawled out on his back between the two officers, his front paws relaxed across his chest.
Even the officers had to chuckle when Kent said, “It looks like he’s surrendering.”
Officer Emerson remarked, “He certainly looks innocent.”
Meanwhile, the lieutenant looked around at each of us. I swear, he wasn’t buying our story. I imagined trying to explain to my mother why I was in jail—because my cat wouldn’t fess up to his crime.
He said to us, “I’ve had people try to wiggle out of their responsibility by putting the blame on someone else in a sticky situation, but I’ve never heard someone blame a cat. That’s a first.”
That evening when Lieutenant Ogilvie more closely examined his wallet, he started to chuckle. He addressed Rags. “Well, you little dickens. You’ve poked holes in my wallet.”
Just then Travis said something that surprised me. I believe he was actually sticking up for Rags! He suggested to the officers, “It’s a good thing he found it and brought it to us or it could have gotten into the wrong hands tonight.”
Lieutenant Ogilvie grinned. “You’ve got a point there, bud. That’s absolutely right.” He shook hands with Travis and nodded toward the rest of us. Before heading toward the front door, he noticed Rags sitting in front of him and he leaned over with his hand out toward the cat. When Rags tapped his hand with his paw, everyone laughed.
“I wonder if that was a high five or a knuckle bump,” James said, chuckling. He then asked, “Can I get a picture?”
“Yeah,” Natasha said, “good idea. I’d like a picture of you guys with the cat. This will make a good story for my Natasha’s Notes Blog.”
I was surprised when the lieutenant picked up the cat and posed holding his wallet in one hand and Rags in the other arm. Of course, I jumped in and snapped a few pictures, as well. Unbeknownst to any of us that night, this was only the beginning of Rags’s amazing reputation with the men in blue.
Once
the officers had left, I told the cat, “Rags, you’re a blasted embarrassment. That was naughty behavior, you klepto cat.”
Rags simply trotted up and head-butted my shoulder, purring as loudly as he could. I got the impression that he thought I was saying, “Hey, what a good boy. I’m proud of you. You’re my everything and I’ll always take care of you no matter what.” Yeah, that’s what he might have heard, but that isn’t quite what I said.
That night, I wasn’t even sure I would keep Rags. I was tired. I was embarrassed. And I began to question whether I could or even wanted to continue providing a home for this over-the-top out-of-control cat. At that moment, he’d worn out his welcome with me. Fortunately for him, I felt better the next day after a good night’s sleep.
Rags had come into my life in the early spring that year and it didn’t take him long to show his klepto colors. Not only had he stolen a policeman’s badge and numerous items from unsuspecting victims throughout our neighborhood, by fall, he’d graduated to kidnapping.
Chapter 4 – The Klepto Cat on Steroids
It was a hot night in Los Angeles and I had the windows open as usual. I thought I had the screens secure to prevent anyone from entering or a certain feline from escaping. I was giving Rags a lot of supervised outdoor time then, hoping he’d be content to stay home at night. But this is Rags we’re talking about—a cat who marches to a different drum beat. In fact, truth be told, he’s probably being accompanied by an entire orchestra.
During the night, I thought I heard something; in fact, it woke me up. Sounds in our apartment were not unusual since Rags had moved in, and his noises always made me somewhat uneasy. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was getting into, hiding, or breaking.